The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-02-12
Special Contributors.
I'M lSSING A FIGURE.'
BY REV. E. L. BRIGGS.
pasadena, CALI

pasadena, CALI
1t is related of certain person, who
in crossing a stream, had drowned his
horses and his family, that on getting
out of the water himself, he sat down
and commenced figuring in the sand.
On being asked what he was doing, he
replied, 81 am trying to find my mis-
take. For before drove into the stream
/ sat down and ciphered out the exact
depth of the water, and was all right;
only 1 missed figurel'
So VIM. Miller was all right"when he
fixed upon the year 1S43 as the time of
the destruction of the world and the be-
ginning of the millennium, "only he miss
ed figure" Calvin was all right''when
he consented to the burning of Servetus,
"only he innocently missed a figure"
So Calvinism is yet "all right" in it's
doctrine of election and -reprobation,
and total depravity of man, and mans
fall in Adam, "only perhaps it has
missed figure" Roman Catholicism
is "all right in the belief in the in
fallibility Of the Pope; the worship
OF the Virgin Mary as Mother of God;
the martyrdom of it's millions of here
tics, and all the rest, 'only it has miss
ed figure" innocently, without doubt.
The self-styled orthodox churches are
ssaal right in their doctrine of endless
hell torments for all who do not believe
in Christ before death, ''only they have
missed figure" The new theology
Congregationalists have ."always been
right in preaching the endless damna-
tion of all the uneonverted heather,
only they have found out that they
''missed figure" very innocently, of
course.
The makers of the old "Blue laws.o
of New England Puritanism were ''all
right" in innocently and with great sim
cerity, whipping Baptists, and splitting
the tongues of Quakers, for preaching
in sincerity what they believed to be
true, "only they missed figure"
Such ministers and members in more
modern times, who defame God and
man alike, and innocently SANDER and
ostracise all who teach that Goods
mercy endureth forever" not simply
until man dies and imagine that they
shall escape the just penalty of their
crimes, "are all right, only they have
missed figure" Yes, when they fig
ure it out in the sand, and wrote it in
their creeds, that their slanders are can
celled by the blood of an innocent
Christ, and blotted from the book of
memory by simply believing that they,
themselves, are the chosen ones of God,
and that all others are heretics, infdels
and outcasts, and doomed, as such, to
endless perdition, they are sail right,
only they have missed figure" very,
very innocently
And the arithmetic of heaven will
prove it to their "shame and everlast-
ing contempt" when they 'awake from
the dust of the earth" God and angels,
and all truly loving and enlightened
men now, and they themselves by and
by, will look with shame upon such de-
traction of the good, and pure, and holy
doctriness and defenders of Christiani-
ty; and will hold in everlasting con-
tempt their own vile ISLANDERS against
the doctrines of the fatherhood of God,
and brotherhood of man, and against
such as earnestly believed and preached
the same.
They have "missed figure" who
persuade themselves that it is faith in
God, or in Christ, to believe themselves
favorites of a demon of endless wrath,
against all such as will not bow the eknee
to the great image they have set up in
their creeds, as a grand tyrant of the
universe. For neither God nor Christ
have any such likeness they are low
ing, and they are kind and merciful to
all, and Gods mercy endureth forever;
while the mercy of the Dagon of Calvin
ism only endures until death; or rather
indeed, there never was any mercy for
the non-elect to endure, for any period
whatever. His mercy, according tc
such doctrines, is infinite partiality
his justice is infinite cruelty; his prov
idence is an infinite tyrany; and his love
is the most intense principle of selfish
ness, jealousy, and hatred against the
very beings of his own creation, whC
were created in his own image.